THE AMAZON RAINFORESTBy: Tyler C. Block 2

Introduction

Welcome to the Amazon Rainforest in south America Located at 0 to 15 degrees south to 75 west. The hemispheres it is in is south western, and middle eastern. The Amazon rainforest The largest rainforest in the world! This ecosystem has a variety of plants and animals including…The tiger, The parrot, The spider monkey, The rafflesia arnoldi plant, and tons more.

Rainforest layers

EMERGENT LAYER

The tallest trees are the emergents, towering as much as 200 feet above the forest floor with trunks that measure up to 16 feet around.   Most of these trees are broad-leaved, hardwood evergreens. Sunlight is plentiful up here.  Animals found are eagles, monkeys, bats and butterflies and has lots of foliage.

CANOPY LAYER: This is the primary layer of the forest and forms a roof over the two remaining layers.   Most canopy trees have smooth, oval leaves that come to a point. It's a maze of leaves and branches.  Many animals live in this area since food is abundant.   Those animals include: snakes, toucans and tree frogs.

UNDERSTORY LAYER: Little sunshine reaches this area so the plants have to grow larger leaves to reach the sunlight. The plants in this area seldom grow to 12 feet.  Many animals live here including jaguars, red-eyed tree frogs and leopards.  There is a large concentration of insects here.

Forest floor: It’s very dark down here. Almost no plants grow in this area, as a result. Since hardly any sun reaches the forest floor things begin to decay quickly. A leaf that might take one year to decompose in a regular climate will disappear in 6 weeks. Giant ant eaters live in this area

The Yanomamo People a Nomadic, Indegenious Tribe"There is a large tribe of Tropical Forest Indians on the border between Venezuela and Brazil. They number approximately 12,000 people and are distributed in some 125 widely scattered villages. They are gardeners and they have lived until very recent time in isolation from our kind of culture. The authorities in Venezuela and Brazil knew very little about their existence until anthropologists began going there. The remarkable thing about the tribe, known as the Yanomamo, is the fact that they have managed, due to their isolation in a remote corner of Amazonia, to retain their native pattern of warfare and political integrity without interference from the outside world. They have remained sovereign and in complete control of their own destiny up until a few years ago. The remotest, uncontacted villages are still living under those conditions.

"The Yanomamo are thinly scattered over a vast and verdant Tropical Forest, living in small villages that are separated by many miles of unoccupied land. They have no writing, but they have a rich and complex language...(culture) Much of their daily life revolves around gardening, hunting, collecting wild foods, collecting firewood, fetching water, visiting with each other, gossiping, and making the few material possessions they own: baskets, hammocks, bows, arrows, and colorful pigments with which they paint their bodies. [See photo.] Life is relatively easy in the sense they can 'earn a living' with about three hours' work per day... The villages can be as small as 40 to 50 people or as large as 300 people, but in all cases there are many more children and babies than there are adults. This is true of most primitive populations and of our own demographic past. Life expectancy is short.

"The Yanomamo fall into the category of Tropical Forest Indians called 'foot people'. They avoid large rivers and live in interfluvial plains of the major

rivers. They have neighbors to the north, Carib-speaking Ye'kwana, who are true 'river people': they make elegant, large dugout canoes and travel extensively along the major waterways. For the Yanomamo, a large stream is an obstacle and can only be crossed in the dry season. Thus, they have traditionally avoided larger rivers and, because of this, contact with outsiders who usually come by river...

"Two major seasons dominate their annual cycle: the wet season, which inundates the low-lying jungle making travel difficult, and the dry season--the time of visiting other villages to feast, trade, and politic with allies. The dry season is also the time when raiders can travel and strike silently at their unsuspecting enemies. The Yanomamo are still conducting inter-village warfare, a phenomenon that affect all aspects of their social organization, settlement pattern, and daily routines. It is not simply 'ritualistic' war: at least one-fourth of all adult males die violently.

"Social life is organized around those same principles utilized by all tribesmen: kinship relationships, descent from ancestors, marriage exchanges between kinship/descent groups, and the transient charisma of distinguished headmen who attempt to keep order in the village and whose responsibility it is to determine the village's relationships with those in other villages. Their positions are largely the result of kinship and marriage patterns--they come from the largest kinship groups within the village. They can, by their personal wit, wisdom, and charisma, become autocrats but most of them are largely "greaters" among equals. They, too, must clear gardens, plant crops, collect wild foods, and hunt. They are simultaneously peacemakers and valiant warriors. Peacemaking often has the threat or actual use of force, and most headmen have an acquired reputation for being waiteri: fierce.

The Amazon rainforest used to cover 14% of the worlds and now it only covers 6% we need to conserve the Amazon and not deforest so we can have air to breathe

These are many types of organisms.

Climate map

Orchid

The orchid is a small white flower. Its habitat is in the Amazon rainforest. Its predators are humans and monkeys. People use these flowers in gardens to decorate them. Also, this flower uses photosynthesis to survive.

The Rafflesia Arnoldi

This flower is 3 feet long by 3 feet wide. Its Habitat is the Amazon rainforest. Humans are its predators because they chop them apart. Ecotourists come from all around to see this

“corpse Flower” the reason they call it the corpse flower is

because it has adapted by creating I stinky smell that smells like a dead body

Spider Monkey

The spider monkey lives in the Amazon Rainforest Canopy. The spider monkey has extremely flexible limbs and uses its tail as a fifth limb. The spider monkey has many predators but there are two

main ones hawk and the jaguar mostly. The spider monkey preys on small bugs and insects and orchids. The spider monkey is an omnivore.Poison dart frog

The frog is very colorful hss a range of colors it can be This frog uses its colors to blend in or camouflage This frog lives on the forest floor. Indians use them to put their poison on the end of spears. It is a carnivore that eats small bugs. The Frog has a layer of poison that it uses to protect itself

Machiguenga Tribe

Amazon jungle – Peru

Population 5,000- 10,000

Location: Manu and Urubamba rivers

The machiguenga people are isolationsists living in small extended family groups, widely spread over about 400 miles of the jungle. They live from day to day by hunting, fishing, and using the slash and burn method for agriculture. The entire political and governmental organization of the Machiguengas is limited to the single self-appointed post of headman of each small family group. In the very early years they had chiefs who ruled with an iron hand. This practice has been changing, and now basically every man is a law unto himself and does as he wishes with little or no fear of reprisal. When a person is confronted by a situation with which he is either unable or unwilling to cope, he simply packs up and flees elsewhere.

Sourceshttp://www.certinternational.org/mission/peru_machiguenga.htm

http://indian-cultures.com/Cultures/yanomamo.html

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://keep3.sjfc.edu/students/alh00804/e-port/layers%2520of%2520the%2520rainforest.jpg&imgrefurl=http://keep3.sjfc.edu/students/alh00804/e-port/msti%2520260/rainforest%2520layers.html&usg=__vl7t8VUV-iFx-PuZtbPyXEnSwCQ=&h=480&w=327&sz=92&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=WpiFgTdRbPaFvM:&tbnh=175&tbnw=126&ei=ueeZTbHEDYHZgAel3-XBCA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Drainforest%2Blayers%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us%26biw%3D1003%26bih%3D463%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=392&oei=ueeZTbHEDYHZgAel3-XBCA&page=1&ndsp=11&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0&tx=87&ty=79

http://www.srl.caltech.edu/personnel/krubal/rainforest/Edit560s6/www/whlayers.html